Inaugural addresses: Best, worst, and lethal

Every four years, Americans get reminded of the highlights in presidential inaugural history — e.g. John F. Kennedy’s stirring words, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country” — while less-than-stellar addresses are quietly airbrushed out of the picture.

Here is a rundown of the best, the worst, and the most lethal inaugural addresses in American history:

–GREATEST SECOND INAUGURAL: Abraham Lincoln was a man of brevity and brilliance, never more than in his second inaugural that eschewed triumphalism even as the Union neared victory in the Civil War:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on the finish the work we are in, the bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

–GREAT SECOND INAUGURAL: Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of righting injustice in America even as it sought to pull out of the Great Depression. “In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens — a substantial part of its whole population — who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.”

“I see one-third of a nation ill-houses, ill clad, ill nourished. ”

–MOST STIRRING: The John F. Kennedy inaugural, for those old enough to remember, featured a crisp and stirring speech on a cold day, even with the drama of an electrical fire at the podium as poet Robert Frost read from his works. The words of JFK will long be remembered:

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed . . .”

–MOST LETHAL: William Henry Harrison was inaugurated in 1841, at 68 the oldest president to take office until Ronald Reagan. “Old Tippecanoe” delivered the longest-ever inaugural address, one hour and forty minutes, braving an icy wind without an overcoat or a hat.

The speech killed him. Harrison caught a cold, came down with pneumonia, and was dead in a month’s time — despite medical care which included bleeding and blistering.

–MOST NECESSARY: The Great Depression achieved its greatest depth in the weeks before Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933. The new president, at the time, wasn’t sworn in until March 4. Banks were failing, and the incoming and outgoing administrations feuded over emergency remedies. FDR faced the crisis head on in his opening words:

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

–MOST CONSERVATIVE: Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 in a period his predecessor called malaise, of economic stagnation combined with inflation. The Gipper ran with his conservative philosophy, presaging the tax cuts and deep reductions in federal domestic spending to come:

“The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks or months, but they will go away . . . In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems. Government is our problem.”

–MOST CENTERIST: President Bill Clinton won reelection in 1996 by “triangulating” between a militantly conservative Republican House of Representatives and the president’s liberal base. The approach was carried on into Clinton’s second inaugural, a kind of correction on what Reagan said:

“And once again, we have resolved for our time a great debate over the role of government. Today we can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We — the American people — are the solution. ”

–THE WORST: With such promises as “a new confidence and consecration,” Warren G. Harding went on, and on, and on in his 1921 inaugural, presaging a presidency that would be judged one of the worst in America’s long history. The speech features such line as: “A regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not blind us to the tasks of today.

Harding was one of his speech’s greatest critics, and helped put into use a phase that even today characterizes windy political speech — “bloviating.”

–THE SHORTEST: President George Washington spoke exactly 135 words in his second inaugural, and referred to the office of president as “chief magistrate.” He invited “upbraidings” from all who witnessed the speech should he knowingly violate any of the public trust put in him.